Entry 28: Espionage Escapades

Indy Timeline: 1917

Espionage Escapades continues the plotline of Indy working as an intelligence agent for the French government while posing as a Belgian soldier during the First World War.  Following some nice establishing shots of Barcelona, the viewer is introduced to several familiar faces like Wolf Kahler (who played Dietrich in Raiders) and Timothy Spall (familiar to Harry Potter fans as Wormtail).  The episode also features the recurrence of Pablo Picasso, who we last saw in Passion for Life and is once again played with manic energy by Danny Webb. 

I was admittedly predisposed to not like this episode as I knew it involved Indy joining the ballet, wearing makeup, and dancing as a unich ballerina.  Right out the gate, this made me want to hate it.  However, I have to concede that this first section was so over-the-top campy and silly, that I ended up thinking that it was a lot of fun.  Indy is teamed with an eccentric team of inept spies that must undermine a rival faction of German spies.  There is a love triangle, a double cross, and deception all around – general mayhem ensues.  Rollicking, goofy, but entertaining.

The second half of the episode takes this spirit and pushes its limits even further by putting Indy in Prague, posing as a woman’s underwear salesman named Andreas Schubelgruber.  Indy is given the seemingly straightforward mission of answering the telephone in his apartment at a certain time on a certain day to receive further orders.  This task quickly spirals into a complicated mess when the phone is missing and Indy must fight through absurd levels of Czech government bureaucracy to obtain a legally sanctioned replacement phone from the “Ministry of Telephones”. 

This episode is all a riff on the works of Franz Kafka and showcases dystopian views of modern society, taking the concept to new levels of absurdity (think “Brazil,” but sillier).  In the course of the episode, Indy meets the young Kafka while he is working for the Ministry of Insurance, and the two are eventually able to solve Indy’s problems (somewhat).  This episode is so over the top with slapstick gags and “loony toons” moments that I would have been turned off if it weren’t so self-aware.  In the course of the screwy comedy, there is actually some clever dialogue and commentary.  At one point Sean Patrick Flannery, exasperated from fighting through countless layers of absurd government bureaucracy, tells an official “I am incandescent with rage!”  It is his best line as Young Indy to date. 

On the whole, Espionage Escapades represents a departure from the canon, but if you just roll with it, I thought it was entertaining and fun.  It may be goofy, but sometimes it is good for a show not to take itself too seriously. 

Indy Rating: 8.0/10